The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1887-04-27
SHIRLEY CARSTONE.
By ELIZA ARCH ARD.
[coSTINUED.]
CHAPTER XIV


CHAPTER XIV.
LINwoOD TRANSFORMED.
Shirley had sighed for change. Wen. she
had had it.
You wanted change, did your she said to
herself How do you like it, now you've
got ity7
She laughed at Shirley Carstone, in her
bitterness, flying hon1eward in the train that
day For two weeks she had been as happy
as she thought it was given mortal 10 be.
And now! She said TO her other self if
there was human being on earth who
thought himself more wretched than she was
she would be willing to change places with
him.
An old metaphysical question floated into
ner mind as she fed homeward still in that
dull train Whether is it better TO know
great happiness and at the same time take
with it the fatal gift of susceptibility to in
tense suffering, or to jog along moderately
comfortable, without ever experiencing the
highest height of JOY or the deepest depth of
miseryl In her stunned, broken mental state,
Shirley debated the pros and cons of that old
question half day. Finally she said:
1T is better to know neither great JOY nor
great suffering. There is more pain than
pleasure IN the world, anyhow The unim-
pressionable are the only happy Thick
skinned people don't have half so much
bother
In her blind misery little things the most
absurd came into Shirley's mind Col Car
stone had disliked crying women excessively.
Once III her fathers lifetime she had seen her
mother weeping. Her father had said smil-
ingly:
My dear, dry your tears. Crying women
are an abnormal growth. They are the re
suit of excessive emotional development in
the sex since the days when man was monkey.
Think how many handkerchiefs have been
worn out, how many bright eyes have been
spoiled Yes think how many classic noses
have been Redeemed through excessive emo
tional development. Ny dear, don't do it!"
Her mamma dried her tears Instantly She
was always slightly in awe of her strong,
merry husband. But the matter seemed to
strike Col Carstone somehow He thought
of it further. Her mother left the room
presently, and then he said rather seriously:
- -ey, Gc2't you ever be one of the
sniveling kind. Be a rational, sensible human
being. Rely on your brains for happiness,
instead of on your emotions. Since the world
began, there have always been Byrons to tell
the race that mans love is of mans life a
part, It's woman's whole existence. Women
have been told this so often that they begin
to think it is a credit to them to break their
hearts, so as to display their superior emo
tional nature. It's rubbish, Shirley. Women
make two-thirds of their unhappiness them
selves, through sentimental nonsense 1t is
not their fault, either, so much. The non
sense has been educated into them, and must
be educated out They must learn self con-
troll. The coming woman viii repress her alb
normal emotional development, and put it
back into its right place. Then women will
no longer be more unhappy than men.
Shirley, it would trouble me to the latest day
of my life if l thought my daughter would
be one of these uncontrolled, emotional
women"
Shirley laughed @Do look like that,
papa" she said.
"No; thank Cod" her father replied, fer
vently.
"But what a solemn sermon you have
preached me" she continued.
Every well, daughter lay it away for
rainy Sunday, and then read it," he an
swered
Had the rainy Sunday come, Was this
what her father meant! Now, after all, had
she, Shirley, inherited through ages of moth
ers that same fatal emotional development
her father had warned her against. Was she
going to let it wreck her life2 How she
scorned heTselfl And yet
1t was a strange psychological experience
Shirley passed through at this time. 1t was
such rude upsetting of all the ways of
thought to which she had been accustomed.
The faiths and the ideals to which she had
clung all her life, had been torn out by the
roots Nights of sleeplessness followed days
of fierce mental conflict, till at last she found
herself in an odd state of physical exhaustion
and mental exaltation.
In the depths of her grief, the most laugh
able incidents she had known, the most comical
stories she had heard, came up before her
with perverse persistency, and Knocked her
like fends Weird faces followed her and
watched her in the darkness, and finally in
the daylight. They were genuine physical
images; she saw them plainly with her wax
ing eyes, in her right senses. She could have
described the dress they wore, the color Of
their hair The same images haunted her day
after day. This one had the identical peculiar
ties of dress, that one grinned at her with his
ugly mouth in the same way each time. And
these unpleasant images had no connection in
| the renotest manner with anything IN Shlr-
leys life so far as she could trace.
She recognized these figures as the hallucin-
alton of disordered nerves, she reasoned about
them to herself in cold blood, and yet they
| tormented her constantly. And all the while
she kept wholly shut up within herself. No
living creature knew of this storm of feeling
that shook her because of abnormal develop
ment of the emotional temperament as she
called it to herself, smiling grimly. No liv-
ing creature knew she had met Mr.. Morrison
again. And nobody found it out.
If her father had been living there would
have been help for her He was the one
friend of her life who would have understood
and sympathized with her, and helped her
out of this chaos. But her father was lying
in the Carstone graveyard up there on the
hill, with the grass of six years above him.
There was no help for her. She must fight
| it out alonel